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Internet Exporer 11: Disable search from address bar (entirely)

Question

When we try to use internal websites (sites like hostname.some.subdomain.com:NNNN/some/path/ ) internet explorer 11 shows autocomplete entries for previous visits to those websites, but, when selected, it then searches bing for those URLs, and that makes
very little sense to do.

it's an address bar. it's where addresses are typed in. I don't want internal website addresses (frankly, any website addresses) to turn into a bing search. I don't search from the address bar. Ever. In previous versions I could disable that, and in this
version that option seems to have been replaced with "go directly if a single word is typed in [intranet site like "home" or "intranet" or "sharepoint", etc.] ", but that doesn't disable the search feature enough to
avoid still continuing to search when internal websites are entered/selected in the address bar.

Is there some other place to disable the search, so that addresses typed into the address bar work?

Internet Options>Advanced tab, check "Go to an intranet site for a single word entry in the address bar"

Regards.

Rob^_^

Yep, as I said, that option is checked, and the behavior still continues. I'm
not just typing in a single word, which is what that option seems to be intended to detect. When we enter a hostname, port number, and path to an intranet site, it searches bing for that entire URL instead of attempting to connect to
the site.

I'm looking for a way to never have the address bar perform a search, if there's no way to have IE11 try to connect to what I typed, first, before continuing on to bing.

I do understand people wanting the option to search from the bar, but I'm not seeing any option to -not- search from the bar, and to instead have the browser try go to the URL entered first.

For example, I enter something like: "testsite.int"... and IE11 immediately auto-suggests: testsite.internal.domain.name:8080/some/valid/path/ and when I click that (or press enter), it then searches bing for testsite.internal.domain.name:8080/some/valid/path/
I'm not seeing any option to have IE11 just GO to the site I entered. It seems strange to have it specifically auto-suggest the full url, and then not go there.

It seems strange to have it specifically auto-suggest the full url, and then not go there.

Your examples are not exactly "full url". E.g. no protocol prefix. What happens if you insert that? Otherwise your match may only be earlier typing that was saved in TypedURLs which only resulted in a search from the Address bar
too.

Also, the search from the Address bar may be due to poor DNS performance, so a workaround for that can be to try caching the lookup first, e.g. by using ping -n 1 -w 1 <hostname> and then assuming you can make IE try its request
before that entry's Time To Live expires you can either avoid the symptom or prove that slow DNS is not the cause. Note that you can use ipconfig /displaydns to check on TTL and also that you are getting a full lookup cached,
e.g. not just a CNAME which needs to be resolved further to find an IP address for it.

Your examples are not exactly "full url". E.g. no protocol prefix. What happens if you insert that? Otherwise your match may only be earlier typing that was saved in TypedURLs which only resulted in a search from the Address bar
too.

Robert Aldwinckle
---

Yes, you're correct; the http:// or https:// protocol portion does force success, and in prior versions (a few ago), you couldn't go to "somehostname:8080/" -- the browser would immediately return an error message, unless you prefaced that with http://.
The current behavior avoids an error message by searching bing, but I'm trying to understand if there's a way to make it try that url first.

To be fair, going back to the error message isn't necessarily any better, though it does avoid exposing our internal URLs to bing.

As a different example, you can type in just "www.microsoft.com/" and be directed to the main site -- it assumes you wanted http:// and port 80, and it goes there without error (and without searching). If you type "www.microsoft.com:80/" i would expect
it to do the same thing, but that turns into a search.

Based on your description, I would like to suggest you turn off following to check the issue:

1. AutoSearch

a. Open the desktop, and then tap or click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar.
b. Tap or click the Tools button, and the tap or click Internet options.
c. On the Advanced tab, under Browsing, select the Do not search from the Address bar check box.

2. Enhanced suggestions

a. From the Start screen, tap or click Internet Explorer to open Internet Explorer.

b. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Settings.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Settings.)

c. Tap or click Privacy, and turn Show enhanced suggestions as you type to Off.

3. Search suggestions

a. Open the desktop, and then tap or click the Internet Explorer icon on the taskbar.
b. Tap or click the arrow to the right of the address bar, and tap or click Turn off search suggestions.

4. Suggested Sites in the desktop

a. Tapping or clicking the Tools button, tapping or clicking File, and then clearing Suggested Sites.

Ok. So now that it is in TypedURLs with a protocol prefix, does it not match as soon as you start typing the first character? Or, for a related workaround, you could make it a Favorite, and get a match after the first two characters.

Say, I just typed Robert Aldwinckle into File Explorer address bar, and it launched IE11 to Wikipedia.

If that works with Search from the Address bar disabled that would be a useful workaround. You could even do it from the Address bar in the Taskbar I suppose?... FWIW it doesn't work for me. E.g. typing new search there and getting
no matches and then pressing Enter resulted in This page can't be displayed

My point was that as soon as you disable Search from the Address bar the Search icon ("glyph") goes with it.

It would seem that using the protocol prefix would be that solution. Just considering this it doesn't seem to make much sense to expect them to tweak the way the address bar works for the general audience. Your example about entering the port
80 after the URL but without the protocol is only valid if you assume that port 80 is http and not someone who decided they'd use a different protocol like FTP on port 80 because they felt like it that day or whatever reason. You could make the assumption
that 80 was HTTP but if you can type the full address (or even the local internal address, then typing the extra few characters to let the browser know how to try and contact the other endpoint doesn't seem too unreasonable.

I personally understand how you feel it should work but if you look at the bigger picture, they (MS) are likely trying to make browsing more friendly for the average user who's never heard of ports or protocols as they relate to internet usage. So
the option to turn it completely off or to type in the full url with protocol seem to be the options for "advanced" users. You also have the option possibly of downloading a search bar (I believe the bing search bar still exists as I see it in Win Update
on several systems as an optional download) which would keep the functionality separate the way it used to be and may be more along the lines of what you're trying to accomplish.

Don! I did what you suggested but the 1st issue is that the "I" bar pops up automatically in the address bar and then I have to manually move it to the search bar. I'd hope your suggestion was what I was looking for but not quite. Any ideas on how
to stop the "I" bar from starting in the address bar and instead starting in the search bar instead?

And for IE11 on Windows 8.1 (not sure why it would be different) I had to enable the menu bar... But then it wasn't under Options (which tempts you go to Internet Options)... Manage add-ons was at the top level.

Thank you very much! I have had the same objection for quite a while. It seems that more and more keyboard and familiar processes are being eliminated by Microsoft with no valid reason or justification for the changes (why doesn't <Alt>+<F4>
close Windows 8?) and no way to maintain the functionality. I know some of that is due to changes behind the scenes that alter the way some stuff works, but many things seem to be an arbitrary change without providing the user any benefit. This means experienced
users get frustrated, new users are no better off, and experienced users can't help newbies as easily (plus people who want or need things a particular way have to spend hours getting their computer back to an efficient and/or functional state).

I very much appreciate your posting. It was easy for me to follow and did exactly what I wanted!

Windows and Microsoft certainly aren't perfect. But I'd rather deal with them then continually fuss with Linux. Some people like it that their old clunker does everything they want, but people like me want to just turn the key and drive away instead of tinker
with everything to get it to run.

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